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Fathers and husbands who openly hire assassins on the streets of the city are going unpunished

Authorities in the southern Iraqi city of Basra have admitted they are powerless to prevent 'honour killings' in the city following a 70 per cent increase in religious murders during the past year.

There has been no improvement in conviction rates for these killings. So far this year, 81 women in the city have been murdered for allegedly bringing shame on their families. Only five people have been convicted.
During 2007 the Basra security committee recorded 47 'honour killings' and three convictions. One lawyer in the city described how police were actively protecting perpetrators and said that a woman in Basra could now be murdered by hired hitmen for as little as $100 (£65).

The figures come despite international outrage which followed The Observer's coverage of the death of 17-year-old Rand Abdel-Qader, who was murdered by her father last April in an 'honour killing' after falling in love with a British soldier in Basra. The 4,000 British troops stationed in the city since the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 withdrew to the airport last September.

Rand Abdel-Qader was killed after her family discovered that she had formed a friendship with a 22-year-old infantryman whom she knew as Paul. She was suffocated by her father then hacked at with a knife. Abdel-Qader Ali was subsequently arrested and released without charge.
Rand's mother, Leila Hussein, who divorced her husband after the killing, went into hiding but was tracked down weeks later and assassinated by an unknown gunman. Her husband had told The Observer that police had congratulated him for killing his daughter.

Seven months after the murders, the problem of these killings in Basra has become worse, according to lawyers. Ali Azize Raja'a, an Iraqi prosecutor who has represented the victims of 32 'honour killings' since 2004, said that, despite accumulating sufficient evidence to prove who was responsible in each murder, he had won only one case.

He said that the greatest issue was the decision by police to release suspects. Seven in 10 of those thought to be responsible for such a killing have left the city, with little attempt made to track them down.

The father of Rand is also understood to have left Basra. He was held by police in connection with his daughter's murder for only two hours. A local businessman who described the actions of Rand's father as 'courageous' is believed to have given a considerable sum of money to him and his two sons, who disowned their mother after she objected to Rand's killing. Raja'a said that when he was approached by Leila over Rand's case, his family was threatened by relatives.

Another Iraqi lawyer, who requested anonymity, said that some fathers had started to hire professional hitmen to carry out 'honour killings' which were then covered as 'sectarian murders'. He said: 'The life of these women isn't higher than $100. You can find a killer standing in any coffee shop of Basra, discussing prices of a life as if he was buying a piece of meat.'

Mariam Ayub Sattar, an activist in Basra, said that any woman caught speaking to a man in public who was not her husband or a relative was considered a prostitute and punished. A fortnight ago three women were burned with acid while walking through a market in Basra after stopping to speak to a male friend, Sattar said.

Nine of the 12 voluntary organisations helping women in Basra have closed down since the US-led invasion.

The Women's Rights Association in Basra was forced to close down after death threats were made following the murder of Rand's mother last May. Two women from a voluntary organisation who had been helping her to hide from her husband were also injured.

Alia'a Obeidi, the organisation's president, said that one of her colleagues was killed while driving to work and, fearing for her family's safety, she later moved to the Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights said that it was working on new projects to end gender discrimination in the country. 'We try to make a difference by teaching students at schools about gender equality, but it only will be possible when parents don't teach the opposite at home,' said Hameed Walled, senior official in the Ministry of Human Rights.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

A young man killed his 35-year-old stepmother with an axe in the name of honour, due to her alleged illicit relations with a local man, in the Shahdra Police precincts on Tuesday.

The victim has been identified as Najma Bibi (35), who was a resident of Okara. Police sources said that the deceased had contracted a second marriage a couple of years ago with Rehmat Ali, who was a hairdresser and running a shop in his locality. They said that it was the second marriage for both, and after marrying each other, they had seven children between them. They also said that Najma Bibi had eloped with an unidentified local about three months ago.

They said that on the day of the incident, she returned home after which she had an argument with Rehmat, but Rehmat surrendered and left the house. Rehmat’s son, Salamat, who was at home, heard the exchange and when his father left the house, he used an axe to kill his stepmother. Police said that Salamat locked the house from the outside and ran away, along with the murder weapon. However, some locals saw him leaving with the axe and informed the police. Police officials moved the body of the deceased to the city morgue. They have also registered a case and investigating the matter. Seperately, the body of a 22-year-old unidentified woman was recovered from Chamman Park in the Harbanspura Police precincts.

Police officials said that the victim was found sitting along the wall of a college located near the Chamman Park. They said that locals informed the police, who after reaching the scene found that the woman was dead. They said that the apparent cause of death was gunshots, as she had been shot at least eight times. They also said that the deceased was wearing a costly dress, which led to the indication that she belonged to a reasonably rich family.

Harbanspura Police officials said that they believed that the initial evidence pointed towards honour killing, however, they had not ruled out rape or kidnapping yet.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Cleric: "Allah Guaranteed Women Their Rights, From the Cradle to the Grave"

Program hostess: "Common-law marriage, misyar marriage, misfar marriage, 'friend' marriage, marriage... marriage... and more types of marriage... If in science necessity is the mother of invention, what led to the invention of all these formulas for marriage?"

Saudi cleric Ahmad Al-'Omari: "Allah guaranteed women their rights, from the cradle to the grave."

Hostess: "And along come men to deny them these rights."

Ahmad Al-'Omari: "Who stands by the woman and grants her these rights? Her guardian. Who is a woman's guardian? First, it is her father, then her husband, and later her son. They are all her guardians. Do you want to give up guardianship altogether?"

Women's Rights Activist: "It's Inconceivable That My Son Should Be My Guardian When I Am 60"

Saudi women's rights activist Suad Al-Shumari: "Yes. According to the shari'a, a woman has the right to do so."

Ahmad Al-'Omari: "No, she doesn't. Allah bound you to this guardianship."

Suad Al-Shumari: "No, according to shari'a, a guardian is needed only for when a virgin girl of a young age gets married. That's it. It's inconceivable that my son should be my guardian when I am 60. It's inconceivable that my brother should be my guardian when I am 40 – allowing or forbidding me to go out, telling me what I can or cannot do, and we would have to negotiate over this.

[...]
"According to the shari'a, women are allowed to drive. Do we drive? I need a husband just to drive me to work."

Ahmad Al-'Omari: "By God, these things have nothing to do with me. You want to drive a car? It's not right."

Suad Al-Shumari: "Driving is permitted..."

Ahmad Al-'Omari: "You would expose yourself to other problems.

[...]
"If a woman were to drive, and her car were to break down – whether she has a flat tire, or she crashes into someone – what would she do?"

Hostess: "But women in the Gulf drive cars and they don't encounter any problems."

Ahmad Al-'Omari: "Do you drive?"

Hostess: "Yes."

Ahmad Al-'Omari: "Don't you encounter problems?"

Hostess: "Absolutely not."

Ahmad Al-'Omari: "Never? I don't believe you..." [...]

Activist: "Polygamy Is Allowed... But the Clerics Must Accept Religion in Its Entirety – Not Just the Parts They Like"
"According to the shari'a, when a girl reaches maturity at the age of nine, and she is able to live a life of marriage, there is nothing in religious law to prevent her marriage."

Hostess: "Even though children are not yet able to comprehend the concept of marriage..."

Suad Al-Shumari: "We hear about cases of child rape and the sex trafficking of children. This is a sickness that is punishable by law all over the world. By the same token, an old man who marries a young girl is also sick.

"As for those who say that the Prophet Muhammad married 'Aisha [at the age of seven] – we must differentiate between what he did in his capacity as a state leader, who needed to forge a strong coalition by marrying the daughters of Abu Bakr and Omar ibn Al-Khattab, and what he did from the perspective of religious law.

"The Prophet did not touch 'Aisha for three years. I challenge any of those old men who marry a young girl not to harass her, when she enters a world completely unknown to her.

[...]
"Polygamy is allowed. To be honest, I support this. But the clerics must accept religion in its entirety, not just the parts they like. I challenge any cleric to declare that men should marry women 25 years older than them, like the Prophet Muhammad did. Let them declare that men should marry women older than them – the wives of prisoners and martyrs. No. All they look for are young girls. An older woman must be rich."

Ahmad Al-'Omari: "This happens. I know many men who married older women."

Suad Al-Shumari: "Only rich women..."

Ahmad Al-'Omari: "She doesn't have to be rich."

[...] TV hostess:" What about the [platonic] wanasa marriage, which was permitted by Sheik Abd Al-Muhsen Al-'Abikan? Is it not true that this kind of marriage is at the expense of the woman, who is expected to give up sex?"

[...] Ahmad Al-'Omari: "In this kind of marriage, the woman gives up some of her rights, and she can give up conjugal relations, just like Sauda, one of the Prophet's wives, gave up her nights for 'Aisha. In such a case, the woman gives up some of her rights, but maintains her other rights. " [...]

Activist: "Of Course, We Are Very Good At Exploiting Shari'a For Our Own Interests"; Cleric: "The Shari'a Serves... Both Men And Women"

Suad Al-Shumari: "Is there a married woman in the world who would agree to give up her right to conjugal relations? Impossible!"

Hostess: "Some people compare this to employing a servant girl."

Ahmad Al-'Omari: "She's not a servant girl. Due to the circumstances of the husband, she can agree to give this up. There is nothing to prevent this. She is allowed to demand her [other] rights."

Suad Al-Shumari: "As far as the shari'a is concerned – okay, this is permitted. Marriage is a partnership, and either one can give up certain things. But from the human and social perspectives, and from the perspective of our traditions and customs..."

Ahmad Al-'Omari: "We care about the shari'a more than anything else."

Suad Al-Shumari: "Of course, we are very good at exploiting the shari'a for our own interests."

Ahmad Al-'Omari: "This is not true. The shari'a serves the interests of both men and women.

[...]
"The misyar marriage is the same as a type of marriage that was called "marriage of days and nights." This type of marriage existed in the days of the Prophet Muhammad, and even before that, in pre-Islamic times. In this marriage, the husband allocates either the day or the night to his wife. This is permitted by the shari'a. There is nothing wrong with it."

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Bahawalpur, Pakistan: One young girl was clubbed to death by her uncle for her alleged illicit relations with a man in TM Pannah Police jurisdiction here on Thursday. Accused Fida Hussain, uncle of Shehnaz Bibi, found her niece sitting with her alleged paramour Amir Khan. He took her to her house and later clubbed her to death.

Police have registered a murder case against Fida Hussain on the complain of the girl's father Nazir Ahmad.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Following are excerpts from an interview with Yemenite cleric Abd Al-Majid Al-Zindani, which aired on Iqra TV on October 23, 2008:

Abd Al-Majid Al-Zindani: Allah said, with regard to women bearing witness: "If two men are not available, then a man and two women, such as you choose as witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her." Some heretics – communists and other atheists – ridiculed [this verse], saying: How come a man's testimony equals that of two women? They used this to mock [the Muslims]. The Muslims used to respond that women are subject to menstruation, when their endurance and mental capacity for concentration are diminished. When a woman witnesses a killing or an accident, she becomes frightened, moves away, and sometimes even faints, and she cannot even watch the incident.
[...]
The American Time magazine, in its July 31, 1995 issue, published this picture from research about the brain functioning of men and women. This is the ma... This is the female brain, and this is an image of the male brain. What do we see? We find that in the case of women, this area... And there is another here... Two areas in a woman's brain are activated when she talks. As we can see, there are many centers of speech in a woman's brain. There is a center in each lobe, while in the case of a man, there is only one center, here. The opposite center does not operate during speech, because it is busy remembering. Both men and women have centers for speech and for memory. In the case of men, the center for speech is here, while the center for memory is here. When a man talks, his center for speech is active, and when he remembers something, his center for memory is active. On the other hand, when a woman wants to talk, she puts both centers into action. This may give us an explanation why women are more talkative.

What is the outcome of this? When a woman talks, she uses the part of the brain that contains the memory, because in the case of women, both centers function for speech and memory. So when a woman talks, she might use the part of the brain containing the memory for talking – and that's it, the data is lost. Therefore, if we need the testimony of women in cases pertaining to human lives, property, honor, or the stability of justice, we must take into consideration this fact of life in the nature of women.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

RAWALPINDI, Dec 11: Airport police on Thursday obtained one day physical custody of a man accused of killing his ex-fiancée in the name of honour after she got married to another man of her own free will.

Airport Area Magistrate Malik Shafique Ahmed remanded Mustafa Syed into the police custody for one day as the investigation officer brought the accused to the court late and could not get the remand from the anti-terrorism court.

Airport police had booked Mustafa, a resident of a village in Kallar Syedan, for shooting and injuring his fiancée Rizwana in the premises of Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench on December 3 after she came out of the court of Justice M A Zaffar.

The woman received three bullet injuries and died on December 8 in district headquarters (DHQ) hospital.

The deceased woman had moved the LHC seeking annulment of an FIR registered against her husband Shafat Janjua with Kallar Syedan Police about her abduction on the complaint of her brother. Rizwana, 21, had stated before a judicial magistrate that she had married Shafat of her consent and feared that her family might kill her in the name of honour.

A police constable escorting the unlucky woman overpowered Mustafa and handed him over to Airport police. Police registered murder and attempt to murder and terrorism cases against the accused on the complaint of the police constable. The mother of the deceased woman had taken her body to the native village for burial. —Our Reporter

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Many are now aware that the Koran—that is, Allah’s word—permits, not just polygamy, but forced concubinage (sex with captive women), according to Koran 4:3: “Marry such women as seem good to you, two and three and four; but if you fear that you will not do justice, then only one, or what your right hands possess [captive women taken in war].” There is, however, an interesting, and very telling, linguistic aspect to this verse that is often overlooked—or intentionally obscured. The Arabic states: “Ankahu [marry]…ma [what] malakat [possess] aymankum [your right hands].”

Oddly enough, the Arabic relative pronoun used to indicate these captive women is "ma": ma malakat aymankum, literally, “what your right hands possess” (see Shakir’s acclaimed English translation which most literally translates this). In Arabic, when one refers to a rational being (i.e., a human), the word used is min, which means “who(ever)”; ma, on the other hand, refers only to things or animals—trees, rocks, dogs and cats—very much similar to the English “it.” Thus, in proper Arabic the phrase might have been min malakat aymankum: “who(ever) your rights hands possess.”

For long I assumed this was but a stylistic matter. However, the highly revered Islamic scholar al-Qurtubi (d.1273) also makes this observation in vol. 5, p.12 of his authoritative 20-volume Tafsir Al Koran (Exegesis of the Koran). He points out that members of the human race should be referred to with min (who), whereas only “inanimate objects” or “brute beasts” should be referred to with ma (what).

Does this suggest that the Koran’s Arabic—touted as the most perfect Arabic—is flawed? Of course, no Muslim would allow for that. Nor need they, as this phenomenon (portraying concubines as non-human) accords well with a number of hadiths that place females and animals in the same category. Musnad Ibn Hanbal (vol. 2, p. 2992), for example, records Muhammad saying “Women, dogs, and donkeys annul a man’s prayer.” Indeed, in Qurtubi’s same Tafsir (vol.15, p.172), after examining such hadiths, he writes, "A Woman may be likened to a sheep—even a cow or a camel—for all are ridden.”

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

There has been a huge increase in the numbers of women in France seeking plastic surgery. These women are not looking for face lifts, liposuction or breast enhancement - they are looking to have their sexual organs reconstructed after having been circumcized in primarily Islamic countries. Unfortunately, this also indicates that female genital castration is still occurring. One suspects that this surge in genital reconstructive surgery is also found in other western nations with high immigration from Islamic countries.

"In recent years around 2,800 women who immigrated to France from Africa or second generation immigrants, of the age group between 18 and 50, have turned to hospitals and centres in Paris and Nantes funded by national welfare to have their genitals reconstructed, devastated by the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM)." LINK

Female genital mutilation involves removing part or all of the clitoris, the surrounding labia (the outer part of the vagina) and sometimes the sewing up of the vagina, leaving only a small opening for urine and menstrual blood. This is done usually without any anesthetic. "FGM can be performed as early as infancy and as late as age thirty. However, most commonly, girls experience FGM between four and twelve years of age."

For a graphic explanation of types of female genital mutilation - FGM - go to HERE - but realize that the article is explicit.

For a list of countries where FGM is prevalent go HERE - but these countries are not the only places that are dealing with the horrific consequences of FGM. With immigration comes the barbaric practice of FGM - thus at least 21,000 young girls are at risk in muslim-rich England and Wales. Norway is also facing an increase in mutilated young women. One woman who dared to expose Islamic connection to FGM in Norway, Kadra, was attacked and nearly killed by 8 Somalian men. It stands to reason that FGM is happening throughout the Western world brought into our countries with rampant immigration along with the much heralded multiculturalism and "globalization" ideologies.Islamic countries may not be the only ones that practice FGM but the mutilation there is prevalent:

"In the Arabian peninsula, Types I and II FGM is usually performed, often referred to as Sunna circumcision especially among Afro-Arabs (ethnic groups of African descent are more likely to prefer infibulation). The practice occurs particularly in northern Saudi Arabia, southern Jordan, and northern Iraq[citation needed]. In the Iraqi village of Hasira, a recent study found that 60 percent of the women and girls reported having undergone FGM[citation needed]. Before the study, there had been no solid proof of the prevalence of the practice. There is also circumstantial evidence to suggest that FGM is practiced in Syria, western Iran, and southern Turkey.[32] In Oman, a few communities still practice FGM; however, experts believe that the number of such cases is small and declining annually." LINK

For another excellent article on the role of Islam go to:

Women Under Islam: Female Genital Mutilation by Adrian MorganClearly any non delusional, normal man or woman would find the entire practice of FGM despicable and mind boggling horrific. Laws have and are being written against this forced disfigurement - but not necessarily followed. Clearly FGN is nothing that we would choose to import into our Western countries. So leave it to the loopey New York Times to present the argument, posed by the "third wave of multicultural feminists" (interesting enough from pro-FGM countries) in FAVOR of the genital castration - all in the name of multicultural tolerance and accpetance - coming to the conclusion that:

" ‘First World’ feminist issues and political correctness and activism have triumphed over the critical assessment of evidence...... She has lamented that her Westernized “feminist sisters insist on denying us this critical aspect of becoming a woman in accordance with our unique and powerful cultural heritage.” .....Should outsiders be telling African women what initiation practices are acceptable? "

Well - that's the first time I've heard the "political correctness" argument used in favor of mutilating women! Funny how the author caveats the article with the statement that she wouldn't choose it for her daughter - yet remains open minded. Really?! then why the inconsistency? How about for herself?

So is that where our anything-goes multiculturalists heading? - the same people who are quick to denouce and agree that christmas customs and piggy banks are offensive to muslims and must stop - are now praising the practice of castrating women? Apparently as long a someone declares that an act is done based on "their culture or heritage"- particularly if it's muslim - it's acceptable? Are the rights of women and children being slaughtered on the altar of multiculturalism?

One feminist (guess she must be from the first or second "wave" of feminists- see above) disagrees with the multicultural dhimmi-ridden blather and correctly places the blame on Islam.

"The greatest threat to peace, progress and pleasure since Hitler, Islamist extremists seek to overturn every gain the suffragettes strived and suffered so courageously for, and for this reason as much as any they must be resisted everywhere from Manhattan to Mumbai with every shred of strength we have. The evil hand of extremism is attempting to turn back the clock on women’s rights all around the world.

Think of the 11 Afghan schoolgirls and four teachers who had acid sprayed in their faces by the Taliban last month for the outrageous crime of believing in female education. And closer to home, look at the disgraceful case of London-based Dr Humayra Abedin, the 33-year-old trainee GP who was kidnapped by her family in August and held prisoner in Bangladesh.
They are trying to force the beaten and sedated woman into an Islamic marriage to a man she does not know.

It is a terrifying echo of the imprisonment and torture of the suffragettes all those years ago. These are crimes against feminism AND crimes against humanity."

As Islam and multicultural dhimmitude infect our Western societies the rights and safety of women and girls are increasingly in jeopardy. It is up to all of us - men and women - to insure that the abomination of female genital mutilation is never considered acceptable in our countries.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

ISTANBUL, December 16 (Compass Direct News) – After a judge yesterday placed new financial and social pressure on the captors of a Pakistani girl kidnapped and converted to Islam, attorneys have guarded optimism they can return her to custody of her Christian parents. Judge Malik Saeed Ijaz ordered the girl’s husband, Amjad Ali, to pay a dowry of 100,000 Pakistan rupees (US$1,275) and allow her parents visitation rights, two actions required by typical Pakistani marriage protocol. At press time he had done neither. Saba Masih appeared at the Multan branch of Lahore’s High Court yesterday along with her Muslim husband and his family. Her parents filed a contempt petition last month against her captors for failing to follow Pakistani marriage protocol. Islamic law (sharia), however, gives a wife the right to relinquish a dowry, and lawyers fear that the Muslim family will pressure her to claim this right in order to offset growing financial pressure. The girl’s family believes the kidnappers have threatened her with violence if she attempts to rejoin her family. “The main thing is Saba must be ready herself to come back,” said her uncle, Khalid Raheel, the family spokesman. “But she isn’t ready to come back yet, and I don’t know how they are convincing her.” On Wednesday (Dec. 17) the judge is expected to adjourn the case and issue a deed requiring Ali to pay the dowry at the convenience of the Masih family. The judge yesterday threatened Ali with prison time if he failed to carry out this order.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

CAIRO, JUNE 27 - A total 97% of the married Egyptian women has suffered genital mutilation, and the area where this practice is most frequent (99%) is in the governorship of Qena, in the south of the country. In Matrouh, on the Mediterranean coast towards Libya, the lowest percentage (25%) is registered. According to the study 'National Project Against Female Circumcision', held by the Minister of Health in cooperation with the United Nations DAG Programme, the percentage is lower in the urban centres (94.6%), higher in the country (98.8%), while in the Sinai it decreases to 37%, Egyptian independent daily 'Al Masri el Yom' reports. Among uneducated women, 99.1% have suffered the circumcision; among educated women (secondary school or university), the percentage gets down to 94%. The percentage of women in favour of the circumcision is 85% in Upper Egypt compared to 50% in the North; 50% of the educated women and 87.5% of the uneducated women are also in favour. Two days ago the Chief Mufti of Egypt said that the "harmful tradition of the female circumcision is prohibited by Islam", after the death of an 11-year old girl following an excessive dose of anesthetic given during the operation. The wife of the Egiptian president, Suzanne Mubarak, who is in charge of the government's consulting commission for Maternity and Childhood, launched today a "national campaign against female circumcision".

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

ISLAMABAD, Dec 16: The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has declared the term ‘gender equality’, used in Section 7(a) of the National Commission for Status of Women Ordinance of 2000, ‘vague and un-Islamic’ and called for its repeal.

In its review of laws report for 2008, which is yet to be presented to the government, the CII said that instead of using ‘ambiguous’ terms, Islamic principles of equity and justice should be implemented in letter and spirit in gender-related matters.

The council, which had opposed the constitution of the NCSW, further recommended that the commission’s recommendations in Section 7(b) of the ordinance should be “in consonance with established Islamic laws”.

The council declared that the repeated use of term ‘gender equality’ as an ultimate target by the commission was ‘impractical thinking’.

It explained that the concept of ‘gender equality’ was impracticable because of ‘distinct differences’ in anatomy and physical and mental capabilities. The CII described the term as ‘absurd and un-Islamic’.

The council further stated that the composition of the NCSW was objectionable under Section 3 of the law. It recommended that women members of the commission should have knowledge of Islamic teachings.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

I was looking for something that I came across to this article by Sarvnaz Chitsaz and Soona Samsami called "Making the Harm Visible - Global Sexual Exploitation of Women and Girls - Speaking Out and Providing Services". It's shockingly speaks about what women/young girls go through in Iran and I guess these Islamic rules are common in the most Muslim countries, so go figure.

Here I want to highlight some part of this article:

From the fundamentalist mullahs’ perspective, sexual vice and virtue are the principal criteria for evaluation of women. The most ignoble and unforgivable of all sins is sexual wrongdoing. Piety, chastity and decency are measured by sex-related yardsticks, and seldom applied to political and social realms.

Fundamentalism conceives of woman as sinister and satanic; she is the embodiment of sin and seduction. She must not step beyond her house, lest her presence in society breed sin. She must stay at home, serving her husband’s carnal desires; if she fails to comply, she is compelling her man to commit sin outside the home.
...
The top officials of the fundamentalist regime in Iran emphasize that it is the "sacred" responsibility of a woman to serve her husband and take care of the household. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the mullahs’ "supreme leader," has declared that "women’s first job is to be a wife and mother." Khamenei dismissed the notion of women’s equal participation in social life in July 1997 as "negative, primitive and childish."

When Mohammad Khatami became president in May 1997, there were optimistic predictions that changes were on the way. Despite all the propaganda, Mullah Khatami and his administration’s deeds point to the fact that mullahs’ "moderation" is nothing but a mirage. Khatami is just as committed to the medieval system of Velayat-Faqih that Khomeini founded. His administration is no different than previous governments, and rests on the same basis of fanatic fundamentalism. In that context, his views on women come as no surprise. Speaking to Salaam newspaper on May 11, 1997, just days before his election, Khatami declared: "One of the West’s biggest mistakes was the emancipation of women, which destroyed the family... Staying at home does not mean being pushed to the sidelines... We must not think that social activity means working outside the home. Housekeeping is among the most important of tasks."

Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Khatami’s predecessor, who currently heads the powerful Council to Determine State Exigencies, is on record as declaring unequivocally that women are inferior and must be treated differently under the law: "Justice does not mean that all laws must be the same for men and women... The difference in the stature, vitality, voice, development, muscular quality, and physical strength of men and women shows that men are stronger and more capable in all fields... Men’s brains are larger... Men incline toward reasoning and rationalism while women basically tend to be emotional. These differences affect the delegation of responsibilities, duties and rights."

Mullah Mohammad Yazdi, the Head of the Judiciary, also emphasizes the subservience of women: "If kneeling before God were not obligatory, wives should have knelt before their husbands." He also said: "A woman is wholly the possession of her husband, and her public life is conditional upon her husband’s consent."

These blatantly prejudiced views shed light on how discriminatory legislation against women has been proposed, adopted, and enforced in Iran since 1979. All the existing laws in Iran, which deal with the rights of women, arise from the stereotyped presumption that men are endowed with the right to dominate women. A man can divorce his wife freely and has the right to retain custody of their children. Article 105 of the Civil Code stipulates: "In the relationship between husband and wife, heading the family is characteristic of the husband." The Islamic Council of Guardians decreed that "a woman does not have the right to leave her home without her husband’s permission, even to attend her father’s funeral."

There are inequalities in punishments for similar crimes. While in most cases harsher punishments are issued for women, their credibility as witnesses and inheritance rights are half those of men. Article 115 of the Constitution specifically excludes women from the presidency. The law also excludes them from appointment to judgeships. Yazdi, the Head of the Judiciary, commented on December 15, 1986: "No matter at what stage of knowledge, virtue, perfection, and prudence a woman is, she does not have the right to rule... Even if a righteous accredited woman possesses all qualifications, she cannot assume a leadership position nor can she pass judgment, because she is a woman." In the words of another Iranian official, women are "immature" and need "guardians."
Aside above this is much more important that we notice how a fundamentalist woman in charge thinks:

Contrary to all of Khatami’s attempts to put a positive spin on the mullahs’ misogynist treatment of women for international consumption, his cabinet does not include even one woman. The appointment of a woman, Massoumeh Ebtekar, as deputy for environmental protection, was supposed to reflect "moderation" and Khatami’s attention to women’s rights. But this woman vice president is no "moderate," and is notorious as a staunch advocate of suppressing women’s rights. As a Spokesperson for the hostage-takers who captured the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, she once told an ABC Television correspondent that she was personally willing to take a gun and kill the hostages. (The New York Times, January 28, 1998). In an interview with Die Tageszeitung on October 18, Ebtekar defended discrimination against women and medieval punishments, like stoning. In response to a question on stoning to death, Ebtekar said: "One should take the psychological and legal affairs of the society into consideration as well. If family rules and regulations are broken, it would result in many complex, grave consequences for all of the society."
Here is the shocking part that some reports say that it happens daily in Iran:

The state-controlled daily, Ressalat, reported on December 15, 1991, that due to extreme poverty and the absence of the most basic facilities, the deprived people of northern Khorassan sell their young girls for as little as $33. The buyers, mostly from Gonabad, take the girls away and put them to work on farms and in workshops. In the impoverished province of Sistan-Baluchistan (southeastern Iran), girls eight - ten years old are sold by their drug-addicted parents for $4. Children are routinely abused in the labor force, and girls as young as four are used in the brick manufacturing, carpet weaving, textile and clothing industries.

According to the penal code, a nine-year-old girl can be punished as an adult by flogging, execution and even stoning. Given the arbitrary punishments and the virtual lack of due process of law, large numbers of children have been executed, in many cases without being officially charged or even having their identities established.

This article explains and fully discovers what's going on in the mind of Muslim fundamentalists and their extreme approach to rule over Iran.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

If Saudi Arabia had a Jerry Springer Show this would be on its greatest hits, the divorced father of an eight-year-old girl married him off to a 58 year old man. His ex-wife goes to court to try to get a divorce for his daughter. The Judge refuses to grant the divorce because the mother doesn't matter, but says the girl can refile after she reaches puberty. The father said the groom promised not to have sex with the little girl until she is 18.

The only problem is this is not television it is real life , and this is just another example of how the "religion of peace" treats its children:

RIYADH (AFP) - A Saudi court has rejected a plea to divorce an eight-year-old girl married off by her father to a man who is 58, saying the case should wait until the girl reaches puberty, a lawyer involved told AFP.

"The judge has dismissed the plea (filed by the mother) because she does not have the right to file such a case, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty," lawyer Abdullah Jtili told AFP in a telephone interview after Saturday's court decision.

The divorce plea was filed in August by the girl's divorced mother with a court at Unayzah, 220 kilometres (135 miles) north of Riyadh just after the marriage contract was signed by the father and the groom.

"She doesn't know yet that she has been married," Jtili said then of the girl who was about to begin her fourth year at primary school.

Relatives who did not wish to be named told AFP that the marriage had not yet been consummated, and that the girl continued to live with her mother. They said that the father had set a verbal condition by which the marriage is not consummated for another 10 years, when the girl turns 18.

The father had agreed to marry off his daughter for an advance dowry of 30,000 riyals (8,000 dollars), as he was apparently facing financial problems, they said.

The father was in court and he remained adamant in favour of the marriage, they added.

Lawyer Jtili said he was going to appeal the verdict at the court of cassation, the supreme court in the ultra-conservative kingdom which applies Islamic Sharia law in its courts.

Arranged marriages involving pre-adolescents are occasionally reported in the Arabian Peninsula, including in Saudi Arabia where the strict conservative Wahabi version of Sunni Islam holds sway and polygamy is common.

In Yemen in April, another girl aged eight was granted a divorce after her unemployed father forced her to marry a man of 28.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Egypt (MNN) ― A report by ASSIST News Service states that while attempting to escape ongoing persecution in Egypt, a Muslim convert was raped and tortured.

Martha Samuel, an Egyptian Muslim who converted to Christianity five years ago, was arrested at the Cairo airport as she was leaving for Russia with her family. Police have promised to release her if she returns to Islam.

In a story covered by the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA), the Egypt for Christ ministry reports that police officers sexually assaulted Samuel both at the National Security office in Heliopolis and at the El-Nozha police station. In a continued attempt to force her return to Islam, police also beat and tortured Samuel. According to AINA, Samuel's children, aged four and two years old, are being denied food to increase pressure on Samuel. Her husband has been taken to the National Security office in Alexandria.

AINA said that the family was trying to travel to Russia using a passport belonging to Samuel, whose former name is Zainab Said Abdel-Aziz. The passport was under Samuel's Christian name, which is on a list of people prohibited from leaving the country. Since converting five years ago, Samuel has undergone continued persecution by Egyptian police, and her own family has tried to murder her.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

MANILA - A MILITARY official says kidnappers have freed a 5-year-old girl after apparently being pressured by a military offensive in the southern Philippines.

Marine Lt. Col. Leonard Vincent Teodoro says Andrea Diman was abandoned Tuesday in a farming village on Basilan island's Tuburan township near where marines were searching for her and her abductors.

Lt Teodoro says Diman was snatched near her house on Sunday by two gunmen riding a motorcycle in Basilan's Lamitan township. She was shaken but unharmed after being held by up to 10 gunmen in a jungle.

He says the kidnappers are believed to have close links with the Abu Sayyaf, an Al-Qaeda-linked group blamed for many kidnappings in predominantly Muslim Basilan province, about 885 kilometres south of Manila. -- AP

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

The mainstream media and Islamic advocacy groups in the United States constantly tell us that female genital mutilation is a cultural practice that has nothing to do with Islam. They do this despite the fact that the among the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, Shafi'is consider circumcision obligatory for women; Hanbalis say it is an honorable custom, but not obligatory; Hanafis say it should be done as a courtesy to the husband. None of the three, you'll note, say that the practice is wrong, immoral, un-Islamic.

Anyway, the upshot of this situation is that while most Westerners take for granted, if they've ever heard of female genital mutilation at all, that it is un-Islamic, it remains only Muslims who haven't gotten this message.

TUZ KHURMATU, Iraq - Sheelan Anwar Omer, a shy 7-year-old Kurdish girl, bounded into her neighbor's house with an ear-to-ear smile, looking for the party her mother had promised. There was no celebration. Instead, a local woman quickly locked a rusty red door behind Sheelan, who looked bewildered when her mother ordered the girl to remove her underpants. Sheelan began to whimper, then tremble, while the women pushed apart her legs and a midwife raised a stainless-steel razor blade in the air. "I do this in the name of Allah!" she intoned.

As the midwife sliced off part of Sheelan's genitals, the girl let out a high-pitched wail heard throughout the neighborhood. As she carried the sobbing child back home, Sheelan's mother smiled with pride.

"This is the practice of the Kurdish people for as long as anyone can remember," said the mother, Aisha Hameed, 30, a housewife in this ethnically mixed town about 100 miles north of Baghdad. "We don't know why we do it, but we will never stop because Islam and our elders require it."

Kurdistan is the only known part of Iraq --and one of the few places in the world--where female circumcision is widespread. More than 60 percent of women in Kurdish areas of northern Iraq have been circumcised, according to a study conducted this year. In at least one Kurdish territory, 95 percent of women have undergone the practice, which human rights groups call female genital mutilation.

The practice, and the Kurdish parliament's refusal to outlaw it, highlight the plight of women in a region with a reputation for having a more progressive society than the rest of Iraq. Advocates for women point to the increasing frequency of honor killings against women and female self-immolations in Kurdistan this year as further evidence that women in the area still face significant obstacles, despite efforts to raise public awareness of circumcision and violence against women. [...]

Supporters of female circumcision said the practice, which has been a ritual in their culture for countless generations, is rooted in sayings they attribute to the prophet Muhammad, though the accuracy of those sayings is disputed by other Muslim scholars....

Of course. But they don't seem to be able to dispute the accuracy of those sayings effectually enough to curb this practice where it is found among Muslims.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Islamabad: On the heels of their crusade against girls going to schools, the Taliban have now issued new dictum in the areas under their sway asking parents of the grown up daughters to marry them to militants or ‘face dire consequences’.

This new force-marriage campaign is being run in most of the areas in the Pakistan's troubled NWFP through regular announcements made in mosques to congregations.

Such instances have come to light recently through some of the affected women daring to go to authorities for justice rather than meekly surrender to the militants dictates.

Salma, who teaches in a primary school in Peshawar, told the influential ‘Dawn’ newspaper that Taliban have told families to declare in mosques if they have unmarried girls so that their hand could be given in marriage, most probably to militants.

If they did not do so, the girls would be forcibly married off; the newspaper quoted the 30-year-old widow as saying.

She also said the Taliban in the Swat valley of NWFP have threatened women with dire punishment, if they are found outside their homes without identity cards and a male relative accompanying them.

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

SARGODHA, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)-- A Christian teenage girl, who was abducted and enslaved by a Muslim, was with her parents Saturday, January 3, after a local court ordered police to free her, Christians said.

Police reportedly carried out the order on December 13, transferring Nousheen Bibi to her parents, after three months of captivity in the home of her former Muslim employee, a woman from the area of Shahzad Park in the Pakistani town of Sargodha.

She was in good health despite "intense mental stress" and there was no evidence of physical violence, Christians said.

US-based rights group International Christian Concern (ICC), with Website www.persecution.org, called the ruling a "rare legal victory" for Pakistani Christians, at a time when many impoverished Christian youngsters are believed to be held as slaves across the predominantly Muslim nation.

MAIDSERVANT

Nousheen's mother, Asmat Bibi, had told the that the Muslim woman, identified as Mehnaz Begum, kept her daughter as a maidservant, two months beyond their agreement. The two women had allegedly agreed to have Nousheen work for only one month as a maid at Mehnaz's house in exchange for a set payment.

Mehnaz apparently refused to either pay Nousheen for her services or allow her to return home when the month was over. "Surprisingly, Asmat did not encounter any opposition at court," ICC said.

"Mehnaz thought she could get away with enslaving the Christian girl because Christians in Pakistan are considered to be very weak both financially and socially."

JUDGE

The fact that a local judge ordered police to recover Nousheen at Asmat's request was seen by rights activists as a positive development. "Asmat Bibi reminds me of the parable Jesus told of the persistent widow and the unjust judge," said ICC South Asia Regional Manager Samuel Wallace.

The United Nations believes about 20 million people are enslaved worldwide, the majority of whom are in South Asia, including in Pakistan.

"In a country where Christians are usually unable to defend themselves against religious crimes, Asmat had the courage to petition the court for her daughter," Wallace said. He added it was a lesson for Christians living in free circumstances to "have the same boldness and trust in God for those we love."

The case also comes amid a debate in the country about mistreatment of young girls and women in Pakistan. Earlier this year, three teenage girls were buried alive by their tribe in a remote part of Pakistan to punish them for attempting to choose their own husbands, in an "honour" killing case.

After news of the deaths emerged, male politicians from their province, Baluchistan, defended the September killings in parliament, claiming the practice was part of "our tribal custom". The girls, thought to have been aged between 16 and 18, were kidnapped by a group of men from their Umrani tribe, several reports said. (With reporting by BosNewsLife's Stefan J. Bos).

__________________O IsraelThe LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.